Idols
by PrettyInky
Summary: Life is going great for all the gang. Better than any of them could ever have imagined. But what comes after you find your happily ever after?
1. Sometimes

Chapter 1: Sometimes

The day that I suppose it all started was the first day Rhiann came to see me. Rhiann Kennedy was 14 and her parents had sent her to see me because she was cutting herself off from everything and becoming depressed.

Just before Rhiann's first appointment I'd given Luke a quick call to catch up. He was always so busy that I hardly ever got a chance to talk to him. I thought it was going to be another day when he wouldn't be there and I'd go straight to answering machine when I heard an out-of-breath " Hey, Luke speaking".

"Oh, Luke, hey", I said a bit surprised that after all he times he hadn't picked up he was actually there. "It's-", I started.

" I know who this is!" Luke interrupted in that deep voice that directors paid 12 million and more for. " How you doing Jenny?"

" I'm really good Luke. How are you? It seems like an age since I've spoken to you."

" It has been", he replied slightly ruefully. " I'm so sorry I've not called you back. I've just had so much on, you know with filming and what not."

"Hey, don't worry about it", I said quickly. " I know how hard you have to work. It's just nice to talk to you." I meant it too. Luke was still a close friend ten years after we'd met.

" What have you been filming?" I asked interestedly.

" We finished filming 'Final Chance' there a few months back and after that I started filming 'Dime, Nickel and Quarter'", he answered. " Actually Geri and I are going to be in Washington in a couple of weeks for the premiere of 'Final Chance'."

" We should all definitely catch up then", I said excited at the prospect of seeing Geri-Lynn and Luke.

" Yeah, I've not seen Scott in ages", replied Luke enthusiastically.

It was then that my receptionist, Olivia, knocked on the door indicating that Rhiann was here. "I got to go Luke, I have a patient", I explained. " Talk to you soon."

" Yeah definitely. Bye Jen."

As soon as Rhiann walked in I felt a wave of fatigue wash over me. I could tell that she didn't want to be there. It was obvious in her body language, the way she spoke but I could also see it in her eyes. They were so guarded, fearful and far too sad to be the eyes of a 14-year-old girl.

She looked like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. I didn't know how it got there and I had a feeling she wasn't feeling very willing to tell me.

I don't really understand why parents force some kids to go to therapy. I mean for some kids it was perfect. They found it so much easier to talk to someone who didn't have a direct affect on their lives. But for others therapy held no answers. If they didn't want to talk at all, forcing them to isn't going to help. And sometimes it just makes things that bit worse.

I didn't know which category Rhiann fell into yet but I was going to find out one way or the other.

After all the standard questions like " how are you doing at school?" and "how are your friends?" we weren't getting anywhere.

And I'm not known for my textbook therapy methods but my success rates are quite good. So I did what I always do when one of my patients doesn't want to talk to me: I left her alone on the couch and played solitaire on my computer.

I know it's a bit unorthodox but like I said it's worked so far and as they say 'If it ain't broke, why fix it?" This is also where I find out if Rhiann might eventually benefit from therapy or if there was nothing I could do for her.

Ten minutes after I had started my game I was stuck. I very rarely get out of solitaire. FreeCell I'm an old hand at but solitaire always provides a challenge.

As I was contemplating which move to make next I heard "If you move the nine of spades onto the ten of diamonds, it'll finish."

"Oh yeah," I said seeing the move. I did as she'd suggested and it finished. I started a new one.

I heard Rhiann get up and come to stand beside me. Whenever she pointed out a move on the screen, I'd do it and in no time at all I'd finished yet another game.

"How on earth did you become so good at this?" I asked her incredulously. It normally took me forever to finish a game and a fourteen year old had done it in less than two minutes.

"Oh", she answered absently. "My brother. He loved solitaire. Was excellent at it too. I used to watch him and I guess it just stuck."

"And how old is your brother?"

"Twenty-five. Twenty-six next month."

"What does he do?"

"He was studying to be a paediatrician."

" How come he didn't finish his course?"

"Because", she answered hotly. "He died in a motorbike accident almost four years ago." She then threw me a glare. "Would you like all the gory details?"

"Only if you want to tell me", I told her gently.

"Fine whatever", she told me sullenly. "It's not like I'm not used to it. Everyone always wants to know." And then, she got this kind of glazed look on her face before she continued " My parents bought him an Indian for his 21st birthday. They'd offered to get him a Harley Davidson before but he'd always told them that Harleys were over-rated. He always had all these technical reasons why he didn't like them. He loved telling his theory to anyone who would listen." At this point a small smile flitted across her face at the memory but it was gone again in a matter of seconds.

"Yeah, so anyway", she continued. " He wouldn't ride it on his birthday. Said it was family day and that he would wait till the next day. I'd asked him the night before if he'd take me with him and he'd said yes but he went out early in the morning and I wouldn't get up. So he went out on his own."

It looked like it was getting hard for her to continue so I told her that she didn't have to tell me if it was too hard. But she carried on anyway.

" He was on his way back home. He was only a few streets away. There was a car driving out of an alley too fast. It didn't see him. Sent him flying 20 ft. up the road. He broke his collar bone and his spine in two places." Her eyes had started to fill up with tears but she still went on in a level tone like what she was saying had absolutely no connection to her life at all. " When they asked him what his name was all he said was 'Rani'. It was his name for me. It's the Hindi meaning for princess." Now the tears over spilled. " He was dead before the ambulance got there. He was bleeding internally."

" What was his name?" I asked quietly.

"Marcus".

At that moment my phone beeped signalling that my next patient was there. It seemed inconsiderate to just tell Rhiann that she had to leave after all that she'd told me. But I needn't have worried she knew what the beep meant.

"Don't worry I'm going", she told me getting up to leave. "You are my fourth shrink in two years." And with a small smile, like tiny, she was gone.

Looking down at my desk I glanced at Zoe. She had been given to me by one of my first ever patients.

"We've a long week ahead of us Zoe", I told her. And then my next patient was in the room ready to go.

A.N. so please tell me what you think! commentsand advice would be much appreciated

R&R


	2. Life

okay now for the apologies: i'm sooooooo sorry for not updating in a more timely fashion but 1. i had major state exams to do 2. i was on holidays for 5 and a half weeks with no proper computer access 3. when i got home the computer had been dismantled with nowhere to put it back and set it up again 4. i just started a new school year with so many projects i've got no time to myself. so that's it. once again i'm really sorry and thanks to everyone who reviewed! hear it is!( finally) hope you enjoy! and don't forget to review!

Chapter 2: Life

Sometimes life does exactly the opposite of what you wanted to happen. And other times its better than your wildest dreams.

For me it was better than any thing I could have imagined. I mean, until Luke came to our school I'd hardly even thought about what I wanted to do after school. I knew that I was good at sorting out other people's problems but I didn't see any of the other things I could do.

My whole life I'd been told that I was just mayonnaise. And after you've been told something so many times you begin to believe it. It's only natural.

And I accepted that that was what I was. I had no real problem with being mayonnaise. But then Luke came along. Luke came along and made me see that I was more than just mayonnaise. He was the only one who saw me as what I could be with just a little bit of effort. Special sauce.

Looking back now I think that I always wanted to be something exciting like, special sauce. I mean don't get me wrong; there is absolutely nothing wrong with mayonnaise. Almost everybody likes mayonnaise. It's always the same, it never changes. And you know that it's always there as a back up.

That's what I was. A back up plan. Always there to smooth things over and make sure things didn't get out of hand. But Luke made me see that I could do that without fading into the background.

I could give people advice as to how to fix their problems themselves instead of fixing them for them temporarily. I could actually become Annie.

And that's what I did.

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That night when I got home I could smell delicious smells all the way from the lift. Scott was cooking! I love it when he cooks because it means that I don't have to!

Well I don't really cook. I re-heat. I never had a reason to learn. I mean, I have been dating the world's best cook since I was sixteen. When did I ever have to learn for my self?

I opened the front door and called out " I'm home."

" I'm in the kitchen," Scott called back.

As I walked into the kitchen I smiled. "I wouldn't expect you to be anywhere else." I gave him a quick peck on the cheek and went to put my stuff away in the hall closet.

"Hey, honey what's for dinner?"

"Fettuccine with salmon flakes in a white wine sauce," he answered. " Oh and I've got some pannacotta that I nicked from the restaurant in the fridge."

"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" I asked him sitting down at the breakfast bar.

" Yes you have," he replied with a smirk. " In fact you tell me every time I bring dessert home from work. Why else do you think I bring it home so often?"

" I just thought that you liked to spoil me," I said with a pout.

" I do," he stated. " But a man has got to have something in it for himself too."

"Oi, don't be cheeky!" I told him while swatting him across the back of the head with a tea towel.

This of course led to a full-blown tea-towel war. These occur surprisingly often in our three bedroom penthouse apartment. And this one ended in the same way that they all end. In a full on make-out session. And it ended the way many of them ended. With Scott suddenly pulling away and turning the heat off on our dinner. It's like he has this oven clock in his head and the alarm always goes off at just the right time.

"Dinner will be about five minutes, okay babe?" he told me without turning round.

"Yep that's fine. I'll go set the table."

As I was setting the dining table I thought to myself that we'd have to have a dinner party soon with all the gang. Maybe we could have it when Luke and Geri-Lynn were in town. This got me thinking about our last dinner party and how much fun we'd all had. Everyone except Luke had been there. He'd been off on location at the time but he had rung half way through and we'd put him on speaker. The last dinner party had been a month or so before Kwang and Cara had gotten married. This got me thinking how good we all had it. We had all really lucked out with our careers and just our futures in general.

Cara and Kwang had gotten married a few months ago and now live in Toronto. They are blissfully happy together and both doing really well in their careers. Cara now, ironically, designs clothes for large girls. Not that she's large herself anymore. In our senior year she joined the gym and found that she actually enjoyed exercise when she didn't have a teacher yelling at her. She also has a popular health and exercise column in a teen magazine.

Kwang is a successful freelance photographer. He has caught his fair share of celebs with their trousers down or stumbling out of some a-list club at the wee hours of the morning and always on film! He also does commissioned photographs of families, pets and kids.

Trina and Steve now live in New York. Trina is an actress on Broadway. It's what she's always wanted to do and she's never been happier. Stevie boy is on the reserve team for the New York Yankees. We are ever hopeful that he will make the first team and hit a home run!

Scott and Geri-Lynn live in L.A. Scott is still doing the films and has an Oscar under his belt. Geri is the assistant editor at a current affairs magazine, 'L.A. Today'. We don't see them as often as we'd like but we do make sure that we see them at least three or four times a year.

And Scott and I? Well we live in Washington D.C. Scott is the head chef in a fancy restaurant called 'Willow' and actually enjoys getting up and going to work in the morning. It helps that he doesn't have to be in until 10.30 every morning! I have my own therapist's office that specialises in children and teens. You'd be surprised how many messed up kids there are out there. So far it's going very well and we have a very high success rate.

For a while I considered going into politics. I even started doing political science in college but in the end I didn't care enough about it to do it justice. I was committed but not as committed as I needed to be. And I felt that I could do more good helping people with their problems first hand.

While we were eating I told Scott about how I was thinking that we should have a dinner party soon.

"That's a good idea", he said enthusiastically. "I've got a new French recipe that I want to try out. I could do it at the dinner party and see how they all like it. If they like it I might put it on the menu."

" I was thinking that we could have it in a couple of weeks. Scott and Geri are coming to D.C. for a film premier."

" You should ring Cara and Trina tomorrow and see if they are able to come down. We haven't had all of us together since Christmas and the wedding."

"Yeah I will." I was really looking forward to having everyone together again. I missed not being able to see them all whenever I wanted. They really were the family that I got to choose.

After dinner and clearing away I said " I think I'm going to go to bed. I'm exhausted. And I've got an early start tomorrow followed by a completely full day."

Ten minutes later I was lying in bed snuggling down for a good night's rest when I heard the door creak open. I pretended to be asleep so that Scott wouldn't try to talk to me. That plan went out the window. He quickly undressed and climbed into bed with me.

After a minute or so he started nuzzling my shoulder. And try as I might I couldn't stop the sigh that I gave. He knew just the right buttons to push. He slowly started kissing my shoulder blades, moving up towards my neck and around to my face. Then he placed small kisses all over my face before moving down to my collarbone and then back up to my lips again. I couldn't take it anymore and started kissing him back. Sleep was the farthest thing from my mind as I kissed him back, first on the lips and then on the place on his neck where his pulse was.

I could feel his pulse quickening and within no time his hands were roaming all over the place. I quickly followed suit and in no time at all we were both rid of our clothes.

I'm sure you all know what happened next so I'll save you the sordid details! I had quite a good night all in all though!


End file.
